A place to find news updates, legal analysis, and all official documents related to the various constitutional challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010)

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

An updated scorecard

* Courts upholding the mandate: one (the Sixth Circuit, by a vote of 2-1).

* Courts invalidating the mandate: one (the Eleventh Circuit, by a vote of 2-1).

(One could also count a vote, or even two, in the Fourth Circuit's Liberty University decision as upholding the mandate--but that might be cheating.)

B. District Courts

* Courts upholding the mandate: three or four (the Eastern District of Michigan, the Western District of Virginia, the District for the District of Columbia, and the Northern District of Ohio, following the circuit precedent of Thomas More Law Center).

* Courts invalidating the mandate: three (the Eastern District of Virginia, the Northern District of Florida, and the Middle District of Pennsylvania).

These are the decisions that have reached the question of whether the minimum coverage provision is constitutional on the merits. Several other decisions have dismissed challenges on jurisdictional grounds.